Dozens sentenced to death over murders of UN investigators in DR Congo

United Nations experts Michael Sharp and Zaida Catalan had been killed in central Kasai region in 2017 while investigating the violence in the region on behalf of the UN Security Council.

By Sara SLEIMAN

Jan 30, 2022

UN experts' bodies were found in a village on March 28, 2017, 16 days after they went missing. / AP

A military court in Democratic Republic of Congo has sentenced 51 people to death, several in absentia, in a mass trial over the 2017 murder of two UN experts in a troubled central region.

Saturday’s sentence follows more than four years of trials for dozens of people suspected in the murder.

Key questions about the episode remain unanswered.

Michael Sharp, an American, and Zaida Catalan, a Swedish-Chilean, disappeared in early March 2017 as they probed violence in the Kasai region after being hired to do so by the United Nations.

They were investigating mass graves linked to a bloody conflict that had flared between the government and a local group.

Their bodies were found in a village on March 28, 2017, 16 days after they went missing. Catalan had been beheaded.

Revenge against the UN

Unrest in the Kasai region had broken out in 2016, triggered by the killing of a local traditional chief, the Kamuina Nsapu, by the security forces. Around 3,400 people were killed, and tens of thousands of people fled their homes, before the conflict fizzled out in mid-2017.

Prosecutors at the military court in Kananga had demanded the death penalty against 51 of the 54 accused, 22 of whom are fugitives and are being tried in absentia.

During the trial, prosecutors suggested that the militiamen had carried out the murders to take revenge against the United Nations, which the sect accused of failing to prevent attacks against them by the army.

If so, those who purportedly ordered the act were not identified throughout the marathon proceedings.

Among the main accused was a colonel, Jean de Dieu Mambweni, who prosecutors say colluded with the militiamen, providing them with ammunition. He has denied the charges and his lawyers say the trial is a set-up.

Mambweni was among those originally facing the death penalty, but instead was only sentenced to 10 years in jail for "disobeying orders and failure to assist a person in danger". His defence team said he would appeal the verdict.

Two more detainees were acquitted, including a journalist. Saturday's verdict is liable to appeal at the High Military Court in Kinshasa, DRC's capital.